Our equipment editors dissect the latest distance report from golf's governing bodies to help you understand what it really means

VCGIt's been a tough couple of weeks here on earth, with tragedy, political strife, and the biggest federal investigation since Watergate (and its cast of increasingly desperate Looney Toons villains) occupying the front and back burners of our collective mental stove. If it feels like the sky is falling, well, you wouldn't necessarily be wrong, because the latest batch of super great news is pretty much exactly that.
According to aerospace authorities, Tiangong-1—an 8.5 ton Chinese space station launched in September 2011—has spiraled out of control and is now set to crash back to earth sometime between March 29th and April 9th. It's likely point of reentry? Along a narrow probability band that happens to include 25 states, from California to New York and several rectangular splotches in between. And if you're wondering why NASA hasn't assembled a rag-tag team of miners, construction workers, and chopper enthusiasts to go blow this thing out of the sky a la Ar..

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) The longest-running PGA Tour event still being played at its original site has been renamed the Fort Worth Invitational for this year’s event.

Colonial Country Club officials announced the name Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months before the first round May 24.

Local companies American Airlines, AT&T, XTO Energy and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway have signed on to support the 2018 tournament.

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Dean and Deluca notified the PGA Tour and Colonial late last year that it may be unable to meet its financial obligations to remain title sponsor for the tournament. This 2018 tournament was supposed to be the third year of a six-year sponsorship deal for the upscale grocer.

The Colonial was first played in 1946.

Billy Murray has been at the center of several high-profile sports odysseys in the past few years, becoming the unofficial hypeman for the Cubs' curse-breaking World Series win and taking on the role of Xavier zealot during last year's NCAA tourney. This year, however, Murray is taking his fandom back to its roots, going Full Bill in the stands following his adopted hometown of Charleston's dramatic Dance-clinching three in overtime of the CAA Championship on Tuesday night. Let's get jubilant:
https://twitter.com/marchmadness/status/971213021002559488
For Charleston, this is a huge deal. The school haven't made the tourney since 1999, when masked crusader and long-retired NBA star Rip Hamilton led UCONN to the national championship. For Murray, meanwhile, this is business as usual. The dude lives to sit in the stands and shout himself hoarse with a Bud in one hand and a crappy hot dog in the other. Sometimes Eddie Vedder shows up, but the most of the time it&#0..

For nearly two centuries, Easter has reigned as humanity’s freakiest holiday, one that commemorates both a man’s actual honest-to-Him resurrection AND — and I feel like this part never gets enough attention — his ability to roll enormous boulders away from cave mouths. I mean, ascension is great, but moving house-sized stones around? Come on! Sure, it’s not “coming back from the dead,” but it’s still a power that would garner some pretty serious Likes if anyone else did it.
Yet though resurrection is “meaningful” and “revelatory” and “the basis for a religion practiced by literal billions,” it proved not quite enough to hang on a holiday on, so we did the only logical thing: Invent a berserk B story involving a mystical rabbit that breaks into children’s houses and leaves food-esque candies that bear the consistency and flavor of wrestling-mat stuffing. We then involved a subplot about eggs—which are not produced by bunnies, even in creationist textbooks — and called it a day. Actually..

The Wright State Raiders knocked off the Cleveland State Vikings on Tuesday night to earn the Horizon League's automatic NCAA bid. It's the program's third trip to the Big Dance, and first since 2007. But you're not reading this post because of the Raiders' win. It's how they celebrated it that's noteworthy.
Wright State freshman Ryan Custer was injured in an off-campus party last April, an accident that left him motionless in a pool. Custer underwent spinal cord surgery, putting the forward in a wheelchair. Despite the paralysis, Custer has remained with the program, and according to coaches and teammates, been an integral part of the team's success.
“If you ask anybody on our team who is the best teammate or the closest friend, two-thirds of the guys would probably say him,” Wright State director of basketball operations Nick Goff said to WCPO. “And that’s a freshman on the basketball team.”
Following the team's victory, the team went over..

PARIS (AP) Evian Championship organizers will increase the prize money at the women’s golf major to $4.1 million in 2019.

A first increase of $200,000 will be implemented this year, with an extra $250,000 added from 2019.

Organizers say the increase is aimed at strengthening the event’s ”position just behind the U.S. Women’s Open as the second-largest purse of the five majors in the women’s Grand Slam.”

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The tournament will also move from its current September date to a July date from 2019.

At the inaugural Evian Masters in 2000, players competed for $1.8 million. When the event became a major in 2013, the prize money was increased to $3.25 million.

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PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) Whatever was said between Jack Nicklaus and USGA chief executive Mike Davis didn’t show up in the annual report on driving distance.

Nicklaus has said for nearly half his life that the ball goes too far, an opinion based more on the 415 golf courses his company has designed than the record 18 major championships he won. He believes the culprit is the ball, not the clubs used to hit it or the players swinging them.

Two weeks ago, Nicklaus sounded an alarm that change might be on the way.

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”I had dinner with Mike Davis, and Mike said, `We’re getting there. We’re going to get there,”’ Nicklaus said at the Honda Classic.

Nicklaus said he figured that would mean another 10 years of research, but that Davis told him the USGA was getting closer to agreements with the R&A ”to do something and be able to help.”

After two weeks of anticipation, the governing bodies delivered data that showed an average gain of 3 yards across seven tours wor..